


Reinforcements

by Shadowjack



Category: Hammerverse - David Drake, The Black Company Series - Glen Cook
Genre: Crossover, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-10
Updated: 2011-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:28:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26952883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowjack/pseuds/Shadowjack
Summary: The Rebel turns the tide unexpectedly.(Spoiled in the tags.)
Kudos: 1





	Reinforcements

**Author's Note:**

> This was done some years ago as part of an ongoing discussion thread to brainstorm crossovers.

One-Eye had been winning all day, but none of us was able to catch him cheating. It was therefore with great satisfaction that I calmly spread my hand and claimed the pot without saying a single word. "A curse upon you, Croaker," he muttered as I began to shuffle, and then the Lieutenant came in.

"The Rebel just took Arch," said the Lieutenant, and went back out again.

We all stared around the table at each other for a moment, then got up and chased after the dramatic son of a bitch. Arch was a thousand miles to the east, but a key point in some sort of Rebel smuggling operation that had interested the Taken sufficiently to fly Goblin, Elmo, and eight picked men out there to support the investigation. Raven went, too. But it wasn't a field operation; there was plenty of Rebel activity, yes, the proverbial hotbed, but Rebel armies? None that we knew of.

I glimpsed a flying carpet shooting out of the fortress, which explained how the news had arrived so fast, though I didn't see which Taken it was, and the Lieutenant was turning out the supply sergeants, which explained what was happening next. But of course I had to ask. "How? The Lady had a full garrison in Arch."

"Blown away, Catcher said. Apparently the messenger who told him saw fires fall from the sky upon the city docks in the morning, and by evening, the city had fallen."

"We have orders to move out?"

"Not yet," he said, angrily, "but do you think they'll sit around?"

He was right.

The next night, another carpet came. Soulcatcher stepped down from the platform, strode right past me, and in his business voice, said, "Bone River fell. You'll be moving swiftly." He didn't break his pace, but walked into the Captain's office while I gawked.

Then I ran back and I started shouting my hospital into packs and boxes. I got the story from the Captain that night. Fire rained from the sky on Bone River, and a thunderous explosion had wrecked the dam above the city. The Rebel was on the move, and showing more power than we'd thought their sorcerers had.

"They've got something new," I said. "And they're damn confident."

The Captain shrugged. "Did you ever meet a wizard who wasn't?" He had a thousand-mile move to plan.

We didn't actually move out all at once, because they had to relay us by magic carpet, and the Taken didn't seem certain about just where they were going to place us. They'd fly some men out, then abruptly run them to new locations further west, inspired by some new intelligence they'd received. The Taken seemed flustered, somehow, completely caught off-guard by the viciousness of this new Rebel attack.

Anything that worried the Taken worried me. Every day or two came more news, relayed by carpet courier or whatever tricks the Taken used. Blue bolts of lightning on the garrison at High Forks, a hundred miles north of Bone River. The Fortress at Delve, taken in a single night with a poisonous miasma. A flying cauldron shattered the gates of the sacred gardens at Peony, letting troops march in for the first time in centuries. A pillar of fire destroyed Stone Bridge. Lightning again at Two Falls, plus thunderclaps that toppled the towers. Whoever was now leading the Rebels in the east was, at least, creative in their choice of magics.

And still no word from Elmo, or Goblin, or Raven. I didn't have the nerve to ask the Taken directly, so I asked One-Eye if he'd seen anything. He grumbled at me—he and Silent were very busy, helping with the carpet relays—but he talked. "I haven't, but I'll tell you this, this is Taken levels of power. Stone Bridge and Arch are leagues and leagues apart, but they fell within a week of each other, and it's got to be the same attacker."

"I thought only the Dominator and the Lady could Take."

"Anything one person can do, another can do if they learn how. So the Rebels finally learned the right spells."

I wasn't enthusiastic about being caught in the middle of a fight between the Lady's Taken and the Rebel's copies, but what could we do? We are the Black Company. We have taken the Lady's coin, and wherever the fighting her for empire is worst, there, inevitably, go we.

"It almost seems like the new one is doing it by himself, like a kid knocking over anthills. When's he going to stop to consolidate his gains?"

One-Eye shrugged. "Maybe he's just turning it over to the local Rebels, and moves on to the next target."

"So fast?"

"Don't ask me. It's not like any sort of warfare I've seen."

Eleven days after the first news and seven hundred miles east, I finally stumbled off a flying carpet and rejoined the Company in a place called Tower's Cut. Every one of the Lady's garrisons within reach had been called into this little mining settlement which was thought most defensible, and they and the Company had spent the past week toppling the forests, damming the creeks, and digging earthworks. We were badly understrength still, but the Taken seemed in a tremendous hurry. As we flew in, I saw them below me, walking back and forth on the perimeter of the encampment, working magics I wasn't sure I wanted to understand.

It was with great relief that I saw Raven waiting for me. Our spy party had made it out. He led me swiftly to the place where my hospital tent would be, but as we went through the encampment, I heard soldiers whispering the news: The Limper had been killed the last night. The Limper? That quickly? Raven ignored my questions, and I wasn't in a mood to keep at him; I'd know the details soon enough.

In the tent I found Elmo, bandaged and lying on a bench, cursing quietly. I checked the orderly's work and discovered some nasty burns, but I had a salve that was good at preventing infections, so I wasn't too worried about him. Raven disappeared, probably to talk to his friend the Captain again.

What worried me was Goblin, who turned up a few minutes later, staring like a new recruit after his first battle. "This one's bad, Croaker. Real bad. Maybe you were right about the North."

"So their new Taken killed the Limper. Saved Raven the trouble, right?" A bad joke.

Elmo shook his head. "It's not a Taken, or anything like it. They're men, mercenaries, like us, Croaker."

"Better than us," muttered Goblin. "The Rebel must have mortgaged all their firstborn sons to pay for them."

I glanced at Silent for confirmation, then looked back. What one man could do, another could do; the Lady hired the best mercenaries she could find, and so, too, had the Rebel. I could feel a cold sweat moving up my spine. "Then the stories we've been hearing aren't true? I know it's hard getting the truth out of frightened refugees—"

Goblin waved his hands and hopped up and down angrily. "No, no, the lightning, the pillars of fire, men riding in flying cauldrons, it's all true. But there are soldiers, too, hard as any of our best. I saw them."

Elmo coughed painfully and lay back down, looking as defeated as I've ever seen him. "Seven cities in two weeks. We barely rode out of there alive."

"No men could do all that in two weeks," I said.

"This man can," said Goblin, grimacing. "I don't know where this mercenary company comes from, but they say their captain's name is Hammer."

**Author's Note:**

> On the original forum, we agreed that it might be a fair fight… and if the Black Company survived, they'd likely get recruited into the Slammers. It wouldn't be the first time, for either force.


End file.
